Ghostbusters 3 Keeps Lurching Forward

The closer this gets to happening, the less exciting it feels.

It’s been rumored for a while that with the passing of Harold Ramis, Sony was trying to rush Ghostbusters 3 into happening.  And I guess they are, as previous director Ivan Reitman said the plan is to start shooting the sequel/ reboot/ whatever it is by the end of this year or early 2015.

I said “previous director” because Reitman also said he does not plan to return to the helm, as he told Deadline:

“When I came back from Harold’s funeral, it was really moving and it made me think about a lot of things. I just finally met with Amy and Doug Belgrad when I got back. I said I’d been thinking about it for weeks, that I’d rather just produce this Ghostbusters. I told them I thought I could help but let’s find a really good director and make it with him. So that’s what we’ve agreed will happen. I didn’t want all kinds of speculation about what happened with me, that is the real story.”

Reitman will stay on as a producer, but pass the Ghostbusters reins to a new director, who will apparently be managing an almost entirely new cast– obviously Ramis’ Egon will not be in the new movie, and Reitman all but says Bill Murray has now passed on the project.  So that only leaves Ray and Winston for the reported small roles of the original busters.  Nothing against Dan Aykroyd or Ernie Hudson, but that doesn’t seem like enough of a reunion to really make an impact… if anything, it feels more like their sad birthday party appearance in Ghostbusters 2.

Deadline’s interview with Reitman did have some really cool quotes about his perspective on the uphill battle this third movie has undertaken over the past two decades.  It’s totally worth a read, which you can do right here.